You begin with a scene that has only a few materials in it.

Set up the lesson:

• On the Quick Access toolbar, click (Open File), navigate to \scenes\materials_and_mapping\intro_to_materials\ and open army_compound.max.
  NoteIf a dialog asks whether you want to use the scene’s Gamma And LUT settings, accept the scene Gamma settings, and click OK. If a dialog asks whether to use the scene’s units, accept the scene units, and click OK.

  Except for the vehicles, the jeeps and helicopter, this scene contains no materials. The buildings and terrain have a featureless, plastic look to them that is typical of newly created geometry in 3ds Max.

  

  The field headquarters before you apply materials

You’ll begin by adding textures to the utility containers in the fenced area at the rear of the compound.

Isolate the utility containers:

1. On the main toolbar, open the Named Selection Sets drop-down list, and choose the Utilities selection set.

   

   3ds Max selects the various containers.

2. Right-click the viewport to display the quad menu, and choose Isolate Selection.

   This command is in the upper-right, Display quadrant.

   

   3ds Max displays the utility containers in the center of the viewport, and hides the other scene geometry.

   TipYou might have to move the Warning: Isolated Selection dialog to see the geometry clearly.

   

3. Use (Orbit) to adjust the view so you can see all five containers clearly.

   

   The isolated set of containers

Now you’re ready to begin creating materials for these objects.

Apply a basic material to the oil tanks:

1. Turn on (Select Object).
2. Click an empty area of the viewport to deselect the Utilities set, and then click OilTank01 (the front cylindrical object on the right) to select it.
3. Ctrl+click OilTank02 and OilTank03 to select them as well.
4. On the main toolbar, click (Material Editor) to open the Slate Material Editor.

   

   TipIf this is the first time you are using the Slate Material Editor, you might need to resize it so you can easily see all three of the columns in its interface.

   Also, to see changes in the viewport, it will help to minimize the Slate Material Editor while you work, and then restore it when you need to work on materials some more.

   The Material Editor is a sort of workbench for creating, adjusting, managing, and applying materials to objects. The main portions of its interface are:

   • On the left, a Material/Map Browser panel where you can choose material and map types (or ready-made materials) to add to the scene.
   • In the middle a View panel where materials and maps appear as nodes that you can wire together.
   • On the lower right, a Parameter Editor where you can edit the material and map controls.
   TipIf the Compact Material Editor opens instead, then on the Material Editor menu bar, choose Modes Slate Material Editor. The Compact Material Editor has a smaller window, with conspicuous sample slots near the top of its interface.
5. On the Material/Map Browser panel at the left, locate Materials Standard Standard, then drag the Standard entry from the Browser and drop it in the active View (the large panel labeled View1 in the center of the Editor).

   

   A node for the Standard material appears in the active View.

   

6. Double-click the Standard material node to display parameters for the material in the Parameter Editor on the right side of the Slate Material Editor.
7. In the material Name field, near the top of the Parameter Editor, enter Oil Tanks as the material name.

   

   Notice that as you enter the name in the Name field, the name in the title bar of the node also updates.

   It is good to get in the habit of naming a material as soon as you create it. In a complex scene, intelligible material names are useful.

8. On the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout, below the Name field, click the color swatch that is labeled Diffuse.

   3ds Max opens a Color Selector dialog.

   Use the Red/Green/Blue controls on the Color Selector to choose a yellow color. Set Red = 200, Green = 200, and Blue = 0.

   

   The diffuse color of a material is the color that appears under diffuse, or scattered, light. It is what we usually think of as “the” color of a material, and what you will set first, when you create a basic material such as this one.

9. Click OK to close the Color Selector.
10. On the Slate Material Editor toolbar, click (Assign Material To Selection).

    In the viewport, the oil canisters turn yellow.

11. Look at the material preview in the title bar: it now has angled corners. Double-click the preview to make it larger so you can get a better look.

    

    Angled corners on a material preview mean that the material has been applied to at least one object in the scene. When the angled corners are solid white, as they are in this case, the material is said to be hot. When you make changes to a hot material, the scene changes immediately, and usually the viewport display shows the material changes you have made.

    You will take advantage of adjusting a “hot” material in the next set of steps.

Make the oil tanks shiny:

Make sure that the three oil tanks are still selected, and that the Oil Tanks material is still active.

1. On the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout, in the Specular Highlights group, change the value of Specular Level to 90.

   Bright highlights appear on both the sphere in the preview, and the oil tanks in the viewport.

2. Also in the Specular Highlights group, change the Glossiness value to 32.

   

   Left: Preview with the oil tank material

   Right: Specular highlight controls with Glossiness = 32

   As you can see the preview and in the graph to the right of the Specular Highlight and Glossiness controls, the highlight is now narrower. Specular Level controls how bright highlights are, while Glossiness controls highlight width. In general, shinier materials have smaller highlights.

You have used basic material controls, Diffuse color, Specular Level, and Glossiness, to create a simple material that has the appearance of a moderately shiny paint. This completes the material for the oil tanks.

Apply a texture map to the ammunition canister:

For the ammunition canister, you will use a bitmap. Bitmaps are a versatile way to add visual detail to scenes, and we use them extensively in this scene. When a bitmap is used to provide an object’s color, it is also known as a texture map. The texture map you apply to the canister shows a section of metal plating with a “checkered” pattern.

1. In the Slate Material Editor active View, move the Oil Tanks node to one side.
2. Drag another Standard material node into the active View. Double-click the node to display the material parameters, then in the Name field, change the name of the material to Canister.
3. In the Slate Material Editor Material/Map Browser panel, at the left, locate Maps Standard Bitmap, and drag this map type into the active View.

   3ds Max opens a file dialog.

4. In the file dialog, click to highlight the file metals.checker.plate.jpg (it is in the project folder \sceneassets\images\, like all the maps for the tutorials), and then click Open.

   3ds Max adds this Bitmap node to the active view.

   

5. Drag from the Bitmap node’s output socket (the circular control at the right of the node). When you drag, 3ds Max creates a wire.

   

   Drop the wire on the input socket for the Canister node’s Diffuse Color component.

   The Bitmap is now wired to the material.

   

   After you wire the Bitmap, 3ds Max also adds a Controller node (you could use this, if you wanted, to animate the Bitmap’s Amount value).

6. Click the new Bitmap node to highlight it.
7. On the Slate Material Editor toolbar, click (Show Map In Viewport) to turn it on.

   A red diagonal shape appears in the Bitmap title bar, to indicate that Show Map is active.

   

8. Click the Canister node to highlight it again.
9. Move the Slate Material Editor window so you can see both the objects in the viewport, and the Canister node in the active View. Make sure that none of the utility objects is selected, then drag from the output socket of the Canister node (the output socket is the round control at the right of the node), drag to the viewport, and then release the mouse over the blue canister in the middle of the group.

   

   Dragging from the output socket of the Canister material

   3ds Max applies the Canister material to the ammunition canister.

   Dragging and dropping from the output socket of a material node is an alternative to using (Assign Material To Selection).

Adjust the metal plate mapping:

If you zoom in, you can see that the mapping is not as good as it could be. The top and sides of the canister look all right, but there is streaking where the top of the canister has beveled faces.

To fix this, you use a modifier called UVW Map.

1. Select the canister object, which is named Ammo, and go to the Modify panel.
2. Open the drop-down Modifier list, and choose UVW Map from the list.
   TipOnce you open the list, you can press U a couple times until the list highlights UVW Map, and then press Enter.

   

3. In the Parameters rollout Mapping group, choose Box.

   The radio buttons at the top of the Mapping group (Planar, Cylindrical, Spherical, and so on) tell the UVW Map modifier how to project the map onto the object. Box mapping projects the map from all six sides, so the texture display is more uniform.

4. Also in the Mapping group, set Length = Width = Height = 2.0m.

   Now the mapping is uniform and looks good from any angle.

   

   The texture corrected using UVW Map

Clean up the Slate Material Editor interface:

1. In the Slate Material Editor active View, click a node to select it, then press Ctrl+A to select all nodes in the View.
2. Press Delete.

   Deleting nodes from the active View simply cleans up the View for further work. It does not remove the materials from the scene: You can still see the materials you created (as well as in the Material/Map Browser Scene Materials group.

   

   If you need to edit a material again, you can drag it from this group and into the View as an instance.

   NoteYou also have the option of maintaining multiple Views of the materials for your scene. See the 3ds Max help for more details.

Apply a 3D material to the generators:

Finally, for the generators, you will use a 3D procedural map. A bitmap is simply a digital image such as a scan or a photograph. A 3D map, on the other hand, is generated by 3ds Max.

1. Select Generator01 and Generator02, the large boxy objects to the left.
2. In the Slate Material Editor, drag another Standard material node into the active View. Double-click the node, then name the material Camouflage.
3. Drag a Noise map from the Material/Map Browser panel into the active view, and wire it to the Camouflage material’s Diffuse Color component.
4. Double-click the Noise node to display its parameters. On the Noise Parameters rollout, click the color swatch labeled Color #1.

   3ds Max opens a Color Selector.

5. Change Color #1 to a dark green: Red = 0, Green = 175, Blue = 0.
6. Click the color swatch labeled Color #2. On the Color Selector, change Color #2 to a tan: Red = 200, Green = 155, Blue = 0.
7. Click OK to close the Color Selector.
8. Click the Camouflage material node again to make it active.
9. Click (Assign Material To Selection), and then click (Show Map In Viewport) to turn it on.

   The map appears in the viewport, but the camouflage pattern isn’t very apparent.

10. On the Noise Parameters rollout, change the Noise Threshold values. Set High = 0.51 and Low = 0.49. In addition, change the Size value to 18.0.

    Now the generator casings have a recognizable camouflage pattern. A bonus of the procedurally generated 3D Noise texture, is that the pattern is not quite the same on either generator. (This effect is more apparent when you render the scene: In viewports, both generators look much the same.)

You now have a reasonably realistic texture for all of the containers in the utilities area of the compound.

View the entire scene again:

• In the Warning: Isolated Selection dialog, click Exit Isolation Mode.

  

  The viewport shows the entire scene once again.

Apply a texture map to the terrain:

For the last step in this lesson, you will apply a texture to the terrain beneath and surrounding the compound.

1. In the Slate Material Editor, drag another Standard material node into the active View. Double-click the node to display the material parameters, then in the Name field, change the name of the material to Terrain.
2. In the Slate Material Editor Material/Map Browser panel, at the left, locate Maps Standard Bitmap, and drag this map type into the active View.

   3ds Max opens a file dialog.

3. In the file dialog, choose terrain.jpg, and then click Open.
4. Wire the new terrain texture to the Terrain material node’s Diffuse Color component.
5. Click the new Bitmap node to make it active, and on the Slate Material Editor toolbar, click (Show Map In Viewport) to turn it on.
6. Drag from the Terrain material node’s output slot, and in a viewport, release the mouse over the Ground object.

   The Ground object turns brown, but it doesn’t show the texture map. This is a sign that the object doesn’t have mapping coordinates.

   Primitive objects such as boxes and spheres have default mapping coordinates, but editable geometry such as Ground, which is an Editable Poly, does not. You have to assign mapping coordinates by applying UVW Map.

7. Select the Ground object, and go to the Modify panel.
8. Use the Modifier List to apply a UVW Map modifier.

   For the terrain, the default Planar projection works fine, and the map terrain.jpg is already the right size for the scene, so your work in this lesson is now complete.

Save your work:

• Save the scene as my_fieldhq_containers_and_terrain.max.